#SpotlightOn is a new monthly feature we’ve started at TATC dedicated to highlighting up-and-coming musicians who have a bright future ahead of them, and we’re starting with comtemplative Capetonian singer-songwriter, Jonny Hayes.
He first caught our attention back in February 2021, with a sensitive visual offering titled “Bathe”. We’ve been following him ever since, and seen his listenership grow by the thousands in the space of just two years.
His music is heavily acoustic, filled with a profound sense of melancholy that is truly impressive for an artist so early into his career. He writes with a kindred maturity that affords him a wisdom beyond his years; a ripe artistic voice guided by humility, and a deep understanding of the human condition.
“You have to love your music for what it is, not the result,” he tells me over a coffee. “Californication” is playing in the background, albeit marred by the hum of traffic in Cape Town CBD on a Saturday morning. “It feels like we’re in a movie,” I joke, “you know, like one of those scenes where there’s so much going on outside the shop window but inside it’s somehow a different world.”
He teaches high-school English for a living, which explains his capacity for self-expression, and articulateness. I get the sense that he’s constantly reaching for something, probing an explanation, or maybe a reason, for who he is and the music he writes.
“You see a lot of new artists posting all over social media and generating hype,” he says, “but it only ever lasts a week or two. When I started writing, I was very secretive about it. I didn’t want to make any noise. I almost wanted people find the songs themselves, and because of the way the internet works, a lot of people I didn’t know started listening.”
He released his first single in 2020, after recording and mastering it entirely alone with a USB-mic that plugs into his laptop. His writing was and still is reminiscent of Parachutes-era Coldplay, and Ben Howard too, both of whom he cites as major inspirations in his life.
“It’s the way they build dynamics in their songs with such little instrumentation that I’m intrigued by, and I suppose what I try to replicate in my own writing.” he tells me, before returning to the topic of how his career started.
“It happened very organically.” he says. “To be honest, I just wanted to leave the room whenever I listened to my music around other people, because I’m so cognisant of the things I should, or rather could, have changed, which was definitely part of the reason I was so low-key about it. I thought the songs would always be these things that lived on the internet and hid away.”
He’s only played one live show since he started making music, an experience that was heavily curated, and he plans on recreating it in his upcoming show on 2 March at Dinkel Bakery. “The songs are going to be very stripped back. I want to tell more stories too, about the tracks and why I wrote them,” he tells me.
Hayes’ second album I Remember Where Light Goes came out at the beginning of the month, and was inspired by moments of intense clarity that he experienced in his own life. “I try to uncover a part of myself that is somewhat self-critical, not to bring myself down, but to understand myself better.” he says. “I’m intrigued by human behavior, and what it means to be totally honest with oneself, which is difficult to do without the fear of being misunderstood.”
Any young artist in today’s industry can learn a lot from Hayes about what it means to make music authentically. I’m not sure where his future as an artist lies, and neither is he, which is the beauty of it all. Guided by intuition, and self-preservation, there is so much intent behind Hayes and his music. He considers the weight of every creative decision he makes, and the result is painstaking truth.
